No Contest

We've observed radio silence lately because we're stuck in a rut. Our days have become rigid in their schedule with nary a variation in our hours.

Your Sister is crawling through the semester. Having only one planning period every two days is murder, and she's deadweight. She's planning to go into work this weekend again, and my suggestions to lighten the workload clunk off her blast shields. The schedule should lighten next semester (still scheduled to begin with the new year, not weeks after), and the feedback of the bedraggled teachers should guarantee this doesn't happen again.

Earlier in the year, the county announced a contest for a new official seal. Logos were solicited, and I was mildly tempted. The deadline was right around the time of the two local conventions, and I had my concerns about the vetting process. Namely, there would be a committee of locals who would filter the submissions down to a handful before a round of citizen voting for the winner. The initial criteria for submissions was clearly noted. Who knows what the committee would look for? And why open up a matter of design to an expanded committee, one the size of the county? Too many variables in play. The winner wouldn't be necessarily the best design, but the one that appealed to the broadest range for whatever reason.

The two logos that have been released for public input reflect my suspicions. (I'd link to them, but the newspaper site requires a paid online subscription to read articles. Even the New York Times gives you a number of freebies per month.) They are bland or intentionally folksy. The committee apparently agreed as they have added a third voting option: the current county seal. So you can vote for weak, weaker, or same. I'm glad I stayed out of it. I wonder if they got so few submissions or, probably, they eliminated the ones that displayed ingenuity. It reminds me of the beer-logo fiasco, and what I call the victorious mediocre. The sharp/smart/clever/snazzy is dismissed in favor of material that prefers to blandly identify instead of engage. Or the contest organizers want the design that best fits their unspoken idea. And that makes the contest a dead crapshoot. (Am I just bitter? Maybe.)

I think the "same" option will win. It's the safest choice, and frankly the cheapest. No money will be required to replace the old seal. And that consideration will (and should, right now) trump all others.

Pictures of the Day
Entertainment Weekly and Marvel released the first official stills from next year's Avengers movie, and I can't believe we're getting an Avengers movie.
 

Hit or Misses

Yes, the airshow was freezing. We packed jackets and hats, but we were still unprepared for a wind that sharp. There was no sun. Others hadn't expected anything like that and attended in flip-flops. We were uncomfortable. They were miserable. Your Sister enjoyed it as much as the deputy because she's crazy for airshows. I don't regret skipping the 9 am 5k race on the runway -- too much wind, too much cold, too little running in the past months. But I am noticeably thinner, and I wonder how that will affect my running when I pick it up again. The Halloween race may still be possible. Actually, we're both pretty small these days. Your Sis is three pounds heavier than she was on her first day of college. I haven't been this thin in more than a decade. Speaking of which ...

This weekend marked the 10th anniversary of the Night That Changed My Life. I forgot about it entirely until this morning. That's a comfort; it means I don't obsess.  But it does remind me how radically my stations have changed in the interim. A new wife, a son, a house, new in-laws, a lost parent, comics, two jobs, 5ks. It's vertiginous. And dizzying. In virtually every way, my life improved. I'm tempted to contact the ex and thank her for her supernova of bad decisions. I'm also curious to compare our progress since then. I don't wish her ill, because, frankly, part of me thinks I don't need to. She's done more damage to herself than anything I could have concocted in the darkest bitter moments.

I mean, let's be honest, someone departs that way because they're betting they can find a better partner or be better off financially (Also it's an intentional slap to the head with a big, cold fish.). But that bet, at least indirectly, also gambles that the one left behind can't do better than the departed. And in that regard, the former missus missed. I traded up. I so, so traded up. Still, she was my best friend for the decade prior to the one I just marked, and her absence is notable for the time we did spend together. I certainly don't regret the marriage as it, if nothing else, house-trained me for Your Sister.

Another of our friends' marriage seems to be collapsing, and both folks work with Your Sister. No one knows the particulars, and that's fine. It complicates Your Wife's workplace, of course, and touches the majority of our friendships. We like this couple a lot, both as spouses and individuals. I hope they can work this out. But the parallels to an early collapse a few years back is spooky.We remaining husbands are obliged to step up.

Picture of the Day
This is Pyongyang, North Korea. This would make Orwell run screaming.
 

Huzzah for Phobias!

Mission Hospital and a slew of radio stations are sponsoring a health fair at the airport Saturday, and they are gonna mount a 5k race there. ON THE RUNWAY. I haven't run since we did it last (was that Easter?), but I might not be able to resist that opportunity. They're trying to bring in kids by promising small airplane rides and tours of the airport's giant trucks, and that's right up the alley of Your Nephew, who is now officially in love with school buses. The only hitch is the jolting cold front sweeping in. And the fact that the airport is shuttling people to the event; I'll bet dollars to doughnuts they can't accommodate a baby seat.

I suspect a bird ate his outdoor pet spider Charlotte.She will continue to live, however, in my nightmares. But huzzah for phobias! Another giant f'ing spider has popped up on our deck, spinning a web we could use for a pool tarp/communal shroud. The sidekick is delighted.

Kathy called to mention an ad she saw in the paper for a part-time radio newsman. This is for the local station. Tempting, but it's part-time, and I'll double down those doughnuts that it's morning and noon. That station goes on autopilot around 4 pm. But I'd love to do radio. I had the briefest of experiences with it at ECU. Did you know I once had an imaginary station that I "hosted" on cassettes I made for songs I taped from actual radio stations? And that I named my Pandora station after it? And that I was a complete goob?

Picture of the Day
The sidekick and monkey enjoy breakfast.

Parental Back-Up

Star Wars blu-rays now live at our house. Your Sister packed it in very early Friday night, and I ducked out to grab the set at the Mart of Walls. I hadn't been in there in a long time, and every stereotype was validated. Their ventilation system circulates sad air.

I spent a few hours in the workshop to pound out the Spider-Girl artwork for Kathy and Travis. It's lingered way too long in the sketch phase. I drew a 11 x 17 piece a while back, but it's flat. I redid it with a new angle, moving away from the tight reliance on my reference photos.

She spent most of the weekend at the school catching up on summer grading. The sidekick continues to move in fourth gear always, and Your Mom came over Saturday to watch him. I went back into the workshop and tackled the city background on the Spider-Girl image and cranked up the commentary track on the Naked Lunch DVD I bought a few moths back. I love that film. I love my time at ECU it hearkens back to. When Your Sister returned, and the sidekick was put down, we cracked open the blu-rays and watched only the deleted scenes. They're wroth the cost of the set by themselves. The Tattooine Biggs scenes are there. The Return sandstorm scene is there. Leia and Han's Hoth argument originally went much longer. The Wampas were more prominent. The admiral in Return had a subplot. Han had a girl on Tattooine. I mean, we just marinated in this stuff.

Both Your Parents came over Sunday while I made the grocery run. I concocted a new stir-fry recipe last night (fried chicken with honey and black pepper coating), and I think I burned my throat. It feels scratchy, and this isn't allergies. I suppose the grease stayed hot cocooned in the crispy shell longer than I expected.  On the other hand, I think it tasted great.

I finished re-reading The Exorcist, and I want to watch the film again. I'm not sure if I ever saw the whole thing through. I think I can sell Your Sister on watching it if I suggest we watch it as a time-caspule artifact from the '70s.

Picture of the Day
Fogbank.

DragonCon Video

This is a good indication of the variety and volume of costume varieties at the show. The only quibble I have is that the video suggests much less floor traffic than we encountered. That kind of wingspan room is just not there. The atmosphere of camaraderie, however, is omnipresent. It really is a happy party.

Not What I Ordered

A sign that we are parents: Sleeping through the entire night makes us giddy as drunks. I'll tempt fate and say he is virtually over his lingering bug. Our own versions are fading also, but we all cough randomly to map the territory of the herd.

(The Debacles need a collective noun. A nerd of Debacles? A thrill of Debacles? An ass-smack/goose of Debacles? We shall ponder.)

Almost immediately after receiving my blue-ray copies of the original Star Wars trilogy from The Amazons did I realize that it contained no supplemental material, the stuff that justified the purchase of yet another copy of these films. I think I've bought them three times, all on VHS. All the packaging noted were commentary tracks. I had hoped and assumed an reckoned that the trilogy sets would each include the good stuff. No. Now I must own bu-rays of movies I don't intend to watch to get what I really want. However, I know the sidekick will probably want to see them within the next three years. I packed up the set, printed out the paperwork from their website, and mailed the movies back to The Amazons this morning. Sigh. So close.

Picture of the Day
Hi, Happy Hobbits.

Again? Again.

Still croupy. Still medicating. I should start a BrewGrass featuring cold medicine. The sidekick is much better, and Your Sister is climbing slowly out of the murk in her head.

I got an email from the theatre announcing yet another show switch. They wanted to do Arsenic & Old Lace, a play with eleven male characters. As the email notes, that's asking a lot. Apparently only three guys showed up to audition. They will instead do a two-person show, one that has the actors reading letters onstage. That may be as close as they ever get to reading theatre, an option that can salvage shows with large casts but few actors. Like the one they just scuttled. Just last week I saw an article about a local actor starting up reader theatre in town in an effort separate from the county theatre group. I tried to sell them on the idea. It's convenient for everyone and capable of being just as entertaining as memorized shows. And you don't risk losing patrons by changing shows midseason.

I briefly considered auditioning for this show before I remembered what my schedule becomes during rehearsals. I can't drop the sidekick off and eat supper before getting to the practice space. Despite my reservations and complaints from past shows, I like this script, and it's a staple of community theatre. I'm starting to age out of certain roles that I always wanted to play. Now that we see how the auditions developed, I'm glad I stayed home.

Your Sister noticed last night that I have a beard these days (not just stubble) and she's fascinated. I think she has beard envy. 

You and I talked about costume ideas for next year, specifically Commissioner Gordon. Here's what the comic version looks like:

And here's Gary Oldman. 

I can do this rather easily. This is a role I'm aging into.

Picture of the Day
This can't be right, can it? The Sahara is longer than the US?

Nip It In the Bud

The sidekick's constant running nose sprints along, and we noticed that he was again stumbling and cranky. Much more moody than we're used to. We remembered that this is how his ear infection started, and we visited the same far-off doctor's office Sunday. Confirmation ensued. The doc said his left ear shows retraction, apparently evidence of an ear infection. We caught it early though, and he escaped the office without a shot and armed with a prescription. We're giving him more ear drops as a precaution. He's again waking up in the middle of the night, and we placate and coo and caffeinate as the sun rises.

A combination of allergies, convention crud, and whatever was blown our way by last week's tropical depression has waylay-ed Chez Debacle. I have avoided a full whammy, but Your Sis is staying home today. The doctor said the sidekick exhibits only the normal daycare exposure to dozens of viruses. Nothing we can do, she said. Wipe his nose and hope he isn't flattened by anything bad. Your Brother is paranoid that all daycare kids require ear tubes, and the doctor poo-pooed that. I was a daycare kid from eight months on, and I had no tubes. A ton of allergies, yes.

We biked Saturday, an excursion delayed for months by the boy's ailments. He seemed OK with it. I had just finished mowing the yard jungle. We usually bike later in the day, and I expected a longer recovery time. Nope, Your Sis was in a high gear, and off we went, and many sufferings did I endure. But I'm glad we did it and wished we went every weekend.

Because of a great early-bird price, we bought our memberships to next year's convention. Combined with our relocation rate and confirmation for the hotel, we're all set. We're going. I'm currently thinking of going as Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon.

Picture of the Day
Apparently the deleted scenes on the Star Wars blu-rays include scenes like this:

Car Talk

Da Missus drove the car with the bad tire to the local garage. They plugged it. But she was told that when she needs a new tire, she has to replace all of them at the same time. All-wheel-drive cars require this. We did not know this. We would have bought another type of car.

I've heard there's a service called 'shaving' that can make a new tire match the degradation of the other three, but that sounds like something beyond our local guys' ability. This stinks out loud.

+  +  + 

I have now ordered the Star Wars Blu-Rays from the Amazons. I only got the original series.

+  +  +

Despite allergies and congestion, the sidekick has slept through the night since last week. Hu-fucking-zzah.

Picture of the Day

I have found my costume for next year's con.

There and Back Again 2011

Here are my con photos.

I stayed home Friday to prepare the boy and My Mom for our vacation. She arrived a little later than I'd hoped. I wanted to caulk our bathtub and give it the whole weekend to dry, but I discovered very late that tubes of caulk can and will go bad. We had three tubes. All liquified. I grabbed the boy and hustled to the nearest hardware store. Mom showed up about an hour later, and I caulked the tub as he went down for a nap. He didn't like it, and Mom had her first exposure to a cranky sidekick, and I think that prepared her for the weekend.

Your Sis got off work at 3:30, and we were on the road by 4:15. It was about half an hour later that we realized one of her tires was perilously low. We could either ignore it, swing by Greenville and patch it (if a garage was open at 5 on the Friday before Labor Day), or go back home and switch cars. We picked C. While it added almost two hours to our ride, it was the quickest option we had. We got to Atlanta at 9. Could have been worse: We passed a 13-mile stretch of interstate where cars were not only parked, but people were milling around on the pavement and playing sports in the median. I have not seen anything like that.

The check-in was seamless, despite the hotel switch, and we charged right out to get our convention badges. The phone GPS was confused by Atlanta's density, but we found the correct hotel downtown and were officially conventioning well before the con closed shop for the night. We hung out with some online friends. The convention started Thursday morning, and the foot traffic was already strong. That was nothing compared to Saturday.

We got up around 7:30 to prepare for the parade. Instead of shelling out $13 for hotel cereal, we found a Starbucks right around the corner. We dressed in costume and hit the road. Between leaving the hotel and finding the parade, random folks had yelled out my character name, including security guards. One approached to check my handgun, and I showed him it was completely fake and plastic and harmless. We learned he was in the Air Force, and he talked Germany to Your Sister.

Right before we got to the parade, we passed a street preacher who was angling for a fight. He was yelling at passersby, including the family with young kids ahead of us. He berated them for reading Harry Potter (assuming they read Harry Potter) instead of the the Bible (assuming they didn't read the Bible). Convention people can validate a lot of geek stereotypes. He was doing nothing to help the stereotypes of fundamentalists. And yelling at kids is the mark of a total asshole. He wondered aloud again why the parents let the kids read Potter instead of the Bible, and this was right as we walked by, and I responded "Because it has a better ending." He stammered a bit and went back to his spiel, and I hope he was soon after hit by a bus filled with drag queens.

Your Sister grabbed a seat near the gathered horde, and I searched for the parade staff so we could officially join in. That done, I sat with her, and we ate breakfast and pointed out costumes. We found a contingent of GI Joe/Cobra folks and complimented each other on their outfits. I saw WKRP's Loni Anderson ride by, and I assume she was a Grand Marshal. On the dot of ten, we started walking, and we quickly found the parade to be immensely immense. Here's Your Sis in all her costumed glory. I love this picture.

I was gobsmacked by the audience. A good number yelled GI Joe catchphrases and character names. It was by itself worth the cost and planning to attend. I saw and hugged my hometown gang along the route, and we were met at the very end by a college buddy and her gal. It was a perfect parade experience.

And then we went into the madness of the convention. You do not walk. You shuffle. Shamble even. You do not talk. You yell. You sweat. You say "excuse me." All the time. You gawk at costumes. You pose for pictures. You obey the security folks even as you grumble about the policies (like no standing along a wall to catch breath). We hit some booths and tables for knickknacks. I found brand new Joe figures that I hadn't seen before. We started snapping costume photos in earnest. The sheer number of people boggles the brains. And it spread over blocks of downtown. It filled hotels. It smothered the streets and restaurants. This is truly an international gathering. And we were INSANE to think we could have brought the sidekick. Some folks brought their kids and shoved them around in strollers, making the crowds less navigable and smooth-flowing. Those people should be ejected. And hit by a bus of drag queens.

We left the crowd and found the Gone With the Wind restaurant where we ate for Your Parents' anniversary. And back we went, into the mob. It really is all about milling and shuffling and sight-seeing. The variety of costumes from every conceivable genre is endless, but there were patterns emerging: Dr. Who, Captain America, Spider-Man, Vader. The biggies.

Your Sister called it a day around 4:30, and we went back to our hotel. It was about seven blocks from the action, and we appreciated the separation. The host hotel elevators were impossible to nab and fit into. We did begin to run into those attending the nearby college football game; some of them had not heard about the convention and reacted as you might imagine Southerners With Money would: Exaggerated confusion and stares. And these were people festooned in school gear as much as we were in our costumes. But I had a bird on my shoulder, and that threw many a debutante. (I know you were a debutante. But you ain't these people.)

I aired out my costume in the hotel room before dressing up again and meeting my online gang for dinner downtown. Your Sister grabbed dinner from the Starbucks (they serve bistro boxes now) and shooed me out the door to enjoy myself. The gang and I gobbled Mexican and rested briefly in a hotel room before diving into the chaos. Saturday night at DragonCon is utter calamity. It's nonstop revelry with obvious debauchery lingering at the fringes. It's Mardi Gras indoors. For hours we walked and gawked and clicked and chatted. I was pulled aside many times for my outfit; most people were delighted to be reminded of a character they hadn't seen in 20 years. Some were confused. Two people asked if I was Popeye. Another person asked if people knew who I was and was relieved when I said absolutely. Some actual firefighters knew me. That was cool.

I packed it in around 12:30. I had worn contact lenses all day, and my eyes were shot. Also, my feet. I carefully walked back to the hotel and initially avoided the drunken game fans whose team just lost. But right as I was about to take the quiet detour away from the mobs, I got my dander up. Fuck 'em. I walked along the main road and right toward the drunks. Some were mighty mad that my comeback was funnier than their jab. One older lady, I suspect, debated tackling a sailorman for a sidewalk quickie. Your Sister was out cold when I got to the room.

We grabbed Starbucks the next morning before officially checking out. The hotel warned us that the valet car service would be swamped Sunday morning, and we may have been the only people to have heeded that warning. The lobby was crammed with crabby hungover game fans bitching about the wait. See, we checked in a day earlier than they, and our car was parked closer. They arrived after everyone else hit the city, and their cars were practically parked at our house. Also, and this can't be ignored, the valets were all black, and these unhappy guests sounded like nothing less than sons of the plantation owners bitching about workflow. We kept silent lest we delay our departures. Let the howler monkeys howl. Brats. Where is that drag queen bus anyway?

We met up with my college buddy and her gal for brunch, and we spent a chunk of time catching up and trading convention stories. They didn't officially attend, but they did donate at the con's vampire blood drive. We managed to escape town before the tropical storm hit, but the Twitter feeds did speak of people waiting in the rain for con events. Your sister suggested new costumes for 2012 before we left the city. We got back about 5:30. Mom was aglow with her time with the deputy. She agreed to do this again next year if we went. And I think we will.

Recap: We're exhausted but deliriously happy in a geek cloud of camaraderie.

+  +  + 

On Monday, I watched the boy while Your Sis caught up on school stuff. We also had to address her flat tire. We called AAA and learned we could have the car towed to the nearest garage, and we pursued that for a while. Then we considered simply putting on the spare tires and having her drive it to the garage later in the week after school. That's what we did. But that car and that wheel are gigantic. A AAA tow driver came by and switched out the tires. I did the grocery run and bought cider for her to swig after the long weekend and last-second workload. The sidekick slept through the night. Thankfully, so did we.

Coalescing

The diaper rash is fading. The sidekick slept through the night. I'm halfway packed. Our con experience is a little over a day and a 3-hour drive away. You just followed me on Twitter.

The world is spinning my way. 

It's with a sigh of relief that I can say our big weekend starts tomorrow. Your Sister doesn't feel ready to pack and go. But might she ever? I say no. Not until we're on the road. We're meeting up with folks from Mississippi and California at the show. We're 90% confirmed to be in the parade Saturday morning, and I hope to have the few comic pros attending to draw in my Doom cooking sketchbook.

I called My Mom, and her anxiety has given way to optimism. She had no pressing questions. I drew a map to the local park, and I promised to leave a garage door remote for her. I pick up her eclairs tomorrow before she arrives.

Picture of the Day
The building codes are slack in Mister Rogers's neighborhood.

Hi, I'm A Bastard

The diaper infection has returned, and I blame the long commute. I was home yesterday awaiting the repairman, so the kid got a full day of intensive tush therapy. The automated pharmacy system initially refused to refill the cream prescription, and I protested to a human pharmacist until I got clearance. This happened about a half-hour after I berated the over repair guy into driving to Asheville to get the part he needed; he wanted to wait until Thursday for the part to arrive from Spartanburg and then make an appointment to install it.

No, sir. I drive to Asheville very day. It's doable.  

But it will cost more, he said.

More than buying a new oven?

No.

Make it happen today.

And he came back about five hours later and fixed the oven. Being a jerk sometimes is the best option. I would have tipped him, but apparently his drive was added into the bill. So he and the company were covered. More money for me and for gee-gaws at the convention. Just three days away! Costumes done! Parade authorities contacted!

I baked some of those Sunday biscuits to go with dinner. Our suspicions bore out: The pilot igniter was kaput. I think it faded into death as the oven seems to crank up like a volcano now.

Your Sister was at school until 8 with the semester's open house, convincing parents that it was too early to abandon ship on their kids' GPA.The boy was down before she came home.

My Mom will be driving up Friday later than we first thought, giving us less time to prepare her for the weekend. I'll call her tonight to give her more notes.

Picture of the Day
I envision the sidekick torturing My Mom with shenanigans all weekend. Or maybe I mean "hopefully envision."

Work It Out

The boy followed a spirited ride home from daycare with an attack of constipation. Seriously, he's trying to suffer every ailment before our Atlanta trip.

He started screaming at bedtime. Orajel didn't help, and Your Sister vetoed ear drops. She took him to the bath and interpreted his expressions to mean he was backed up and fighting it. After a half hour of his screams, I suggested we try to colic thermometer trick: You lay the baby* down, insert a thermometer rectally, and wait for his protesting muscle contractions to work out the blockage.

We did this in his tub for about a half hour, and halfway through, he realized what we were doing and that it could help, and he started co-operating. We were actually working together on this, and it was a bonding moment. It was almost 14 months to the day that I was in practically the same position making practically the same encouragements to Your Sister.

She grew impatient and wanted to try an enema, but a hastily improvised contraption failed immediately, and I went back to the thermometer. Eventually, I let him sit normally and let him play with bath toys and realized his screaming had stopped. I called in Your Sis to verify that the storm had passed. He was fine.He was exhausted, and he cashed into sleep quickly.

*I trip up over this word with him. He's technically not a baby anymore, and I wanna enjoy each of his developmental stages. I don't want to infantalize him, to be the kind of parent that can't let go of the baby-hood. He's a toddler, but that's a clumsy word. My nickname for him had the word "baby" in it, and I'm awkwardly trying new names. It still tumbles out by habit, and I regret it each time. I may just start calling him by his first and middle names.

+  +  +

A little longer than I'd rather, I heard back from the hotel representative, and I now have a confirmation of accommodations at a second Atlanta hotel. I'm concerned the deal I was promised may not trickle down to the front-desk people, so I opened a Twitter account (@GregoryDraws) to ask the Hyatt Concierge for help. I heard back immediately and was given an email to send a request for the PDF of the deal. I'm waiting to hear back.

EDIT: I got my email listing the consolation package along with contact information for a reservations manager. I called and thanked her. This situation stinks for a lot of people, but it's progressed smoothly.

I bought two blocks of styrofoam to carve my gun replacement. I'll try painting it before falling back to covering it in electrical tape.

Picture of the Day
A mask at a local craft store. 

Heart Attack

I got a call yesterday morning from our DragonCon hotel. I expected it was a reservation confirmation. The four main hotels that house the party fill up quickly, and people scramble for last-second accommodations. That's why we reserved a room in September. Eleven months ago.

I was informed that because of construction overrun, we couldn't use the rooms we reserved. And we would not be able to get rooms in that hotel.

Initial reaction: MURDER.

However, the hotel rep, who had no doubt steeled herself for this and probably experienced similar meltdowns already, told me that a nearby hotel had agreed to take the displaced, and our original hosts would pay for one of the nights, offer us early reservations for next year's convention at this year's rates, and give us free subway passes for this year's show. That seemed fair. I agreed to the deal. I was assured that we'd receive confirmation emails within the next two days.

I asked the caller when the hotel realized this would be necessary, and she said last week.That's short notice, and I'm positive they were holding their breath for months beforehand in anxiety. So Wednesday morning --  eight days before the start of a four-day Mardi Gras attended by thousands and thousands -- they had to find new rooms for their guests. I told her I sympathize with the last-minute adjustments and hoped those she had to inform were kind to her. I suspect some will deliver the rage I managed to keep in check.

Our new hotel is five blocks away from the party. That might make for better sleep. We can also get there via the subway system. We need never risk bad weather.

Today
Me: Hi, new hotel. I need a confirmation for a relocated reservation.

Second DragonCon Hotel: Yeah, we never heard of you, and we're booked solid. Oh, we do have a special rate for a room Saturday night.

Me: How booked solid are you if you have a special rate on a room?

Second DragonCon Hotel: You should call the first hotel and find out what's up.

Me: Hey, first hotel. Guess what second hotel told me.

First DragonCon Hotel: Those booked-solid rooms include the block we nabbed for the relocated guests.

Me: But there's no proof I'm included in that.

First DragonCon Hotel: I'm gonna call over there and verify you're taken care of.

Me: OK. I'm being polite, but I can get ugly here.

First DragonCon Hotel: Won't be necessary.

Just a few minutes ago
First DragonCon Hotel: You're on the list, and they are still working on reservations.

Me: When you say "working on," what are the chances I won't get a room?

First DragonCon Hotel: None. You'll have a room. I'll call you with the confirmation when I get it.

Me: So I just sit tight and wait?

First DragonCon Hotel: Please.

Me: Can I borrow your fingernails to chew on?

First DragonCon Hotel: Thanks for being patient.

Me: Please take this the right way, but when you call me with the number, I hope that's the last time I talk with you.

Now
Me:

We tried on our costumes last night. I'm thinking of making a stryofoam gun butt to replace the heavy toy gun I carried last time. That gun made the holster sag the whole time. I don't need a whole gun, just something to fill the holster. I can sculpt and paint it in an hour. We've lost so much weight since 2009 that our costumes will sag a bit no matter what.

The deputy is a hundred times better now, but he was wired last night. We all slept maybe four hours. I am Biblically acquainted with my coffee travel mug today.

Recovery

The Nystatin seemed to work immediately. I'm using it exclusively on him instead of alternating it with the Vusion non-prescription cream; I'll save that for later. For now, he gets the strong stuff. His color's better, and he seems relaxed. Relaxed-er. Your Sis says he probably felt relief immediately. He's back at daycare equipped with the cream and a warning about his teething. We used Neosporin on him last night after he became cranky. Seemed to work. Teething can cause kids to tug their ears, and that initially spooked us into thinking his ear infection returned. He and I also apparently share the same allergy cycles. To recap: His loins are burning, he's teething, and his nose is a swamp. Childhood, ta-da.

I felt the quake yesterday but assumed it was one of the assisted-living home delivery trucks driving off. I felt what I assumed were aftershocks, but those felt like a very mild swaying. Your Sister and her students -- half a mile away -- had no idea anything happened.

The new neighbors baked us an apple pie, and we are devouring it each night. It's huge. Now so are we.

Picture of the Day
The gals went to Tallahassee and lost a close one to a nationally ranked team. I think our team is too new/limited in competition to get into the rankings.

A-ha.

It's a yeast infection.

He developed a slight fever at daycare yesterday, and I picked him up early and immediately made an appointment with the doctor. We saw her this morning (and her pediatric shadowing med student), and she pointed at the "classic breakaway lesions" and said this was treatable. We have two new medicine creams and should see improvement within 48 hours. Also, he were advised to dry him with a hair dryer and let him go streaking. Warm air is better than the bog that is his diaper. His fever is miniscule today. Also, he's teething.

It's a huge relief. This is common and fixable, and he's not actually pissing radioactive water. The parental panics do creep up after a few days of mystery ailments.I'll stay home with him today, and we'll probably be on a regular schedule tomorrow and after.

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Say cheese.

Shift Rotations

After a weekend of medicine and baths, we have deduced that this diaper rash is a product of his antibiotic treatments for the ear infection. His skin goes red as his urine spills about in his diaper. Either he's peeing an irritant or something on his skin reacts to the pee.

The daycare folks suggested it might be diet, but nothing new has been introduced. They also said the antibiotics may have scuttled good bacteria in his system. He gets yogurt every day. Maybe we should up the dosage. If this doesn't fade by Tuesday night, I'm taking him to the doctor. Our best home remedies are exhaustive and exhausting us. I presided over about three hours worth of bath soaks this weekend. His rash also bumped our planned party-versary bike outing, for obvious reasons.

I took the neighbor kid to see Captain America, and he is psyched as psyched can be for next year's Avengers movie. So am I. The film holds up on second viewing too.

We're two weeks from DragonCon, and it's sneaking up on us. My Mom will watch the deputy that weekend, and she's equally excited and anxious. I'm taking that Friday off to walk her through a day with him, and we've hired a babysitter to be available via phone if Mom needs help. She's on retainer. But Mom's watched the boy before. She'll be fine. He hasn't spent the night without us before though, so I don't know how Your Sister will do.

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Peek-a-bird.

Piling On

And now he has diaper rash.

It really should be called "diaper raw," because it's a sunburn in his pants. The common zinc oxide creams hurt him, and my almost-brilliant notion of aloe did no better. The daycare uses A&D which is mostly petroleum, and we've moved to that at home. Your Sis had me run out last night for a stronger ointment, but virtually all of them have zinc oxide. I went with the old-fashioned A&D (I hadn't heard of it before this week), and it does seem to help the most. We also started baking-soda baths.

We called the local nurse hotline. We were told to try an athlete's foot cream under the possibility that this is fungal. Your Sister wondered if this might be a yeast infection brought on by the antibiotics for his ears, and the doctor had in fact checked his mouth for thrush Monday at the follow-up. The soda baths were confirmed as a remedy, and it was suggested we give him as many as four a day. It was also advised that we skip the wipes for now and wash him off in the tub to clean him.

He was miserable for the last two days, but was almost normal this morning. The irritation is still there, but he's not as sensitive to a dirty diaper. We know the daycare folks have seen everything, and we trust their recommendations. I hope he's getting all the maladies out of his system before we go to Atlanta.

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This behemoth towers over Asheville. I took this outside the Blue Spiral art gallery Wednesday.

Workload

Your Sister crashed into sleep early last night, driven to comaville by a weekend of class preparation and two days of student wrangling. Also she was frustrated by a lack of empathy from fellow teachers when she mentioned that she turned down a request to mentor a new teacher. They countered by citing their own workload.

I think they meant to be encouraging to the teacher fresh from maternity leave. Instead they sounded competitive, as if she were slacking off. That rankled Your Sis. I reminded her that these were two teachers who very recently applied for positions outside the department. They were clearly hoping to escape some job obligations as well. They also refused to take the department chair job, letting it fall by default to her. They don't take on all the potential responsibilities. Neither should she. She was asked to mentor a new PE teacher, not someone in her department or even close by her classroom. She hasn't coached a team in five years. How could she mentor that position?

After putting down the sidekick, she shuffled into the TV room where I had Little House on the Prairie waiting for her. She plopped on the couch and vegged. She thinks her work pressure will ease off as the semester moves forward under its own power. That's encouraging. I slapped together dinner to the chirping of Melissa Gilbert.

Kathy and Travis asked that I draw a picture of their eldest daughter as Spider-Girl, and I sketched that out as the missus slept.My Mom's fried also asked that I draw her grandson based on a school photo.

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This DragonCon beard is getting scraggly.

Rage. Mow. Rage. Yank.

You know that my job can rub me the wrong way. Monday was especially bad. Something minor -- and I could admit even then that it was minor -- got under my cuticles, and I was ready to walk. The sidekick shuts down that line of thinking pretty quick, much quicker than I might have entertained it.

When I got home, I handed him off to Your Sister and explained that the weather made mowing the yard too convenient to put off. Also, I needed to burn off the frustration. I only mowed the front yard. The backyard would take too long, and I didn't want to force Your Sis to do the boy's entire downtime herself. I figured I could shave the yard and get back inside to bathe him. And I did. I timed it just right.

The yard really did need the mow. My neighbor hires a crew to manicure his lawn to the height of a golf green, and mine looks like it belongs to a meth lab by comparison. As soon as his yard is cut, I feel that tractor beam of friendly competitive home ownership.

It got cut, and I got inside. The boy got bathed. I fed him his bedtime snack and turned on the oven to warm for supper. When Your Sis put him to bed, I prepped the wings. The oven temperature alarm went off, and I shoved the food inside and hit the timer for the usual 20 minutes (wings bake for 20 minutes before I smother them in sauce and bake for another 20 minutes). I added two minutes and ran outside to slip on the waiting yard shoes to weed the sweet potatoes.

Those vines have been covered in weeds and grass for weeks, and I could never quite get to them. That ate at me since I first noticed it, and I knew I had the lingering anger to power through it in record time. But I wanted to get back in before the first timer went off. And again I did. I got back inside with three minutes left, so I would have returned with just one minutes to go before I added the sauce. I did that, showered, and called My Mom to report on the sidekick's follow-up appointment yesterday morning. The second timer gave me an excuse to get off the phone and yank Your Sis away from her desk; she needed a dinner break amid the schoolwork.

She ate as we caught up on the day. Her first day in front of kids was fine, but she has hours and hours between bathroom breaks, and there's still some sort of organization to do, requiring time at her desk. I draw. I surf online. I clean up.

I did burn it all out of me and eventually figured out how the sparking event could actually be turned in my favor. I call that a minor victory.

Picture of the Day
That was my face as I mowed. (Which one? ALL OF THEM.)

Make That Bird

We took a road trip to Greenville to see the Rollergirls. The home team is just starting, and their facilities are small. It's a county rec center, and the entire game -- bout, benches, audience, ticket booth -- was inside a hockey rink enclosure. You know the set-up the Asheville Civic Center uses for winter ice skating? We were in that in Greenville. Maybe three hundred people were in attendance, but I'm sure our team went through the same dues-paying foundation building.

I got to talk finally to my contest liaison, and she apologized for what happened with my logo design. I said I still consider the logo 90% my design (she agreed), and I still get to see it in action and on the streets. I told her I've worked for years in jobs where my artwork goes through committees. She seemed relieved.

Because this was the county pavilion, it's food bar catered to kids. No beer. We went to the afterparty to get our beer, and it was a karaoke party for the local team. Our team left early to drive back home, and we didn't stick around either. I did get to see four rollergirls table dance to Def Leppard, so I feel like I got my birthday party.

It was also the birthday of one of our rollergirls, and I congratulated her after the bout. Funny trivia: If you wanted to find anyone from the two teams in intermission or after the bouts, they were outside the pavilion smoking. How can they compete doing that?

Oh, and Your Sister gave me a six-pack of money to spend on the road trip.

A six-pack of money!

I spent Sunday fixing my DragonCon bird prop. My character, Shipwreck, has a green bird, and the one I bought in the Outer Banks is red.

It just wasn't close enough for my liking. I spent some lunch breaks buying glues and feathers and paints and devoted Sunday to my bird upgrade.

I peeled the feathers off the bird and arranged them in a vertical exploded fashion so I could see how many and in what arrangement I'd need to recreate with my new feathers.

But my new feathers were larger and fluffier -- more like duster feathers -- than the flat plastic originals. I could trim and cut, but the half-feathers fell apart. My bird would be fluffier. I couldn't avoid it.

The real trick was figuring how to apply them. The Elmer's glue I bought wouldn't adhere to the Styrofoam frame. By studying how the larger original feathers were attached, I saw that they were glued together and then glued to the bird. I was surprised the quills weren't jammed into the Styrofoam, but I decided to follow their method. I hot glued them together, and that was very successful. But applying hot glue to the frame was a problem because the hot glue ate into the frame. Eventually I tried rubber cement in the classic dry-to-dry method. That worked fine.

After periods of gluing feathers and frame and allowing them to dry before combining, I had a fully feathered bird.

The pictures make it look much less shaggy than it really is. It looks like it's molting. But it's now the proper colors.

I can trim and shape the feathers to smooth it out. That will be easy work after the experimentation of glues and paint. (Paint didn't work. I would need the plastic aerosol paint that you use for swing sets and metal benches. That would make the bird heavy and lacquered.)

Your Sister spent a lot of time this preparing her classroom for today's grand opening of the fall semester. I think she overplans, but I understand wanting to direct momentum.

Easing Off the Meds

Following a few days of good spirits and sleep habits, we're gonna rein in the sidekick's drugs. He'll stay on the antibiotics. I mean, we're not Jenny McCarthy. But the ibuprofen and ear drops go back on the shelf. The daycare folks were advised to use the drops only if he seems uncomfortable. I slept the entire night last night -- no ear-drop alarms, no baby rousing -- and I feel like I could wrestle the ears off a whatever the hell that was. (Gundark. Yeah, but what is that? It's in the comics. THAT'S NOT CANON! Indoor voice, indoor voice.)

Your Sister's first day back went well, she thinks. The school is still settling, but she and the other English teachers got an early start on their schemes over the past few weeks. There's still the matter of what to do with some summer reading lists; a departed teacher assigned Wuthering Heights, and no one wants to teach it.

Our mornings now have definite shifts. She gets up early with him, and I bat cleanup at 7. She dresses, caffeinates, and walks to work. I feed the boy, change him, and pack for the commute. I realize I'm gonna have to wake up much earlier to tackle the next comic. Also, we'll need to turn the TV off and work evenings to stay ahead of our workloads, and I'm fine with that. We can goof off on weekends. Also also, I need to get to running.

As DragonCon approaches, all I have left to do for my costume is to take apart the parrot toy and replace his red feathers with green and yellow. I bought feathers and glue to do this. I tried to paint over the plastic originals, but the acrylic paint wouldn't adhere, and getting plastic pant would make him heavy for my shoulder. I prefer the feather route.

Your Sister realized shortly after her haircut that it now matches that of the character she's dressing as for the con. The haircut is growing on me. It was this length if not shorter when we started dating, and I remember seeing her with such short hair way back when we were still just buddies. She and my ex came by my office to show off her new do. It was a test: Would the guy notice a new haircut. They might have skunked a lesser man, but I grew up with many female friends and learned to stay vigilant.

At Tuesday's picnic and last night's gardening, I am all ate up by bugs. They are ravenous. In fact, ravens wouldn't leave these many marks. 

Addendum: During the sidekick's bath, an NPR program on Wagner played a piece of the Star Wars score, and he lit up. A momentous moment.

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It's nice to be nice.

A World of Difference

He was almost bubbly when I picked him up from daycare. He laughed all the way home and may have bopped along to my iPod (Istanbul Not Constantinople specifically). He was in great spirits when he got home, and he crashed hard at bedtime. We put drops in his ears before our bedtime, and he slept until 5:30. The stronger medicine has definitely taken hold. We were practically happy-drunk from relief during his supper. Your Sister remains concerned about how the mornings will go as we trade him off and she leaves for school. I think we'll be fine.

Travis called me last night to invite me to the Rollergirls' away game in nearby Taylors for my birthday. No matter how well the night goes, it can't make me happier than being invited out by a guy friend for my birthday. That has never happened.

Picture of the Day
Here's the first image of next year's Superman movie. I'm getting burned out on the crosshatch costume texture for superheroes, but that S symbol is a nice throwback.

A Time of Suffering

This weekend was horrible.

The sidekick continued to tumble after a few steps, and he started these half-hour throat-shredding screaming fits, often in the dead of night. What we thought was the hallelujah rash turned out to be a reaction to amoxicillin, and he wasn't showing any improvement. Sunday morning, Your Sister officially had it and made an appointment that morning for the doctor. She drove like the devil to get to Hendersonville.

We were told his ears looked terrible and he needed stronger medication. He got a shot of rocephin and new prescription for cefdinir (a lost Lord of the Rings character, we think) and more ear drops. We took turns last night getting up every two hours to flood his ears with the drops and stave off the pain. He slept through almost all of it. But we are the walking dead.

Your Sis and I are on eggshells with each other as we are frazzled, but we are grateful to the doctor for assuring us that we did exactly the right thing by making a new appointment based on his unusual behavior. While the initial prescription was for ten days, we couldn't wait that long for the first sign of improvement. He was miserable. We were miserable. We became impatient parents, and it paid off.

After some redundant conversations about his medicine with the daycare staff, he shocked us all by going with the employees with no fuss or tears. Not a sound. I think he may have crossed over. We really hope to sleep through the night tonight.

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Chez Debacles is a testy house.

A Long Night

The boy's fever spikes and wanes. He got a sponge bath in the dead of night and went to bed at 5 am. Your Sister had him most of the night, and I came in at the very end to put him to sleep. She's the starting pitcher, working the majority of innings with a variety of pitches, and I'm the closer. I throw only fastballs and work for a tenth of the time. It's not fair, but it works. If he's not better by tomorrow morning, we take him back to the doctor for stronger medicine. His nose seems cleaner at least. I wonder if I myself have some of this ear infection. I can hear some popping in my right ear. My won crud is vanishing, thanks to a cocktail of Quils and cough drops.

This followed an evening that left me walking on air, drunk on my awesomeness, following the Lions Club speech. You can read about it here.

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The first image of Anne Hathaway from next year's Batman movie was released today. Hard to tell what she's wearing. At least it's black. 

Diagnosis

It's an ear infection. He saw a doctor yesterday and was prescribed drops of amoxicillin, benzocaine, and antipyrine. His fever is down to a manageable level, and all the medicine helps him sleep. As does mine. I took NyQuil after a hot soak to get through the night. It worked. I feel better than yesterday, but my throat is tight. My speech is tonight, and I am armed with green tea.

The speech is 17 pages double spaced, and I think that will get me through 20 minutes as requested. Still don't know what kind of crowd to expect. I'm taking a sample of comics as examples of singles, trades, etc. I picked expendable copies as I expect they'll either be mangled or taken home by someone who thinks they're free samples.

Addendum:  I just saw on their website that their last two speakers for their monthly meetings canceled. I shall be their hero. And they had 12 people attend last month. I can handle that audience. I've performed in front of four people and other times, 600. And I have my script in front of me this time.

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Gather 'round, everyone. Let's dissect comics.

Sick Leave

The boy's fever and nose continue unabated. I think the fever spiked last night, and hope he'll be over this by the weekend. I'm at the office today, and Your Mom and Sis are watching him today. Becoming a parent has not made me less disgusted by sick babies, but my empathy helps me clean him up and comfort him. I'm throwing back Vitamin C to fend off the bug. My Lions Club speech is tomorrow, and the text is virtually finished.

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USAToday broke the news yesterday that Marvel will put a mixed-race teen under the Spider mask. This will take place in an alternate-universe title, but the reaction has been as sweeping as you might expect. The only question I have is how he can embody the "great power/great responsibility" credo that makes Spidey so good a read.

Quick Update

The sidekick has run just enough of a fever that the daycare won't take him, and I've been home Monday and today. He is flush with energy and snot, making him literally a running nose. By happenstance, this is a downtime in my office load, so I'm not falling behind. Your Sis and Parents are at her school reassembling her classroom. Also she might find out what classes she's teaching today. Maybe. If he's still sick tomorrow, Your Mom may have to watch him. This is the worst time for him to be sick. Your Sis can't get a substitute teacher to set up a classroom.

On Sunday morning, I yanked the rest of the potato plants (and their meager yield) and planted the next round of squash plants. And then it rained for nine hours. That should spark the seeds.

So ... Yeah

The sidekick is a walking bruise. As he plays at walking faster and longer, he falls a lot. He comes home from daycare with new bruises daily. I fret that we'll get a call from social services.

As the school year approaches, we have to redo the household budget and plan for interrupted nights. He's able to sleep through the night again, but there are times he rouses and chirps before going under again. We're trying to encourage this ability, and we're able to distinguish noises to determine when he really needs attention.

I had one of those weeks that delivers a series of stomach punches. There wasn't one thing that alone was so distressing, but the number of them left me dazed and unsettled. Matters have stabilized as the week's progressed, and I'm again left confused if I handled each haymaker properly with my default, maddening patience or if I could have defrayed some frustrations by going volcanic. That option becomes so very tempting, if for no other reason than its novelty. It doesn't help that I too carefully pick my battles. Ultimately I pick no battles. I'm left then unsure what I'm more frustrated by: the situation or my reaction to it.

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I cook angry!

Publicity Tour

Out of the blue, the local Lions Club contacted Chez Debacles to ask if I would speak to them at their next monthly dinner. They saw my article in the paper and were apparently curious enough about making comics and comics in general that I seemed like a good idea for a dinner speaker.

(Aside of Insecurity: I suspect they desperately needed a speaker. The dinner is next week.)

I was told to prepare to speak for 15-20 minutes and hold a QnA session afterward. Easy enough. I'll talk about comics in general and their current pop-culture dominance. As I expect an older audiences, I'll toss in references to mid-century Superman radio dramas and Scrooge McDuck comics.Also, Captain America for the 'contemporary relevance' points.

This is certainly nothing that I expected in the wake of the article. But if I'm to be Local Comic Book Guy, this I can do. My Manager, Your Sister is giddy. We're working on names for this publicity tour. Like the Superlative Hyperbole Tour. Or the Inflated Sense of Importance Tour.

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Super Macho Road Trip!

Cheat To Win

no mic for me yet. i've got a test and presentation Friday so I probably won't be able to join you this week yet. but i'll find you. i'm stuck in new orleans rescuing the purple power thing ontop of the roof with snipers on every other roof. yes, i'm stuck at mission #2.

I had to use online walkthroughs just this weekend to get me past a monster you'll encounter in a month or so. I like the guides found on this site.

EDIT: I played an Infamous2 demo at Best Buy to kill lunch, and it seemed to be the mission you're in. Aim low and blast the balconies and towers. The folks will fall and die. Also, those snipers fire once and then cower. You might have luck charging at them and wailing away with the tuning fork.

Don't worry about a mic for now. Let me figure out how to chat first.

A daylong rain kept me out of the garden. No taters yet. Someone Twittered my Bossk Office, and it went kinda huge yesterday. And a lot of those visitors went to the Doom Blog.

Yesterday was Your Sister's last full day at home with the sidekick, and she's got the sadness. Looks now like she'll have just one week to prepare as many as four distinct classes. More sadness.

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Annie Lennox in her solo career prime.

I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.

Melting, Melting.

The twin influences of home ownership dignity and property values demanded that I mow the lawn this weekend despite temperatures ranging into the millions. It was murder. I know I lost weight by the gallon. I had to take the weed-eater to the garden again, and, had the plants been further apart, I would have used the lawnmower. I hope to yank up potatoes today and ready the soil for planting more squash. The first batch of vines was pretty much a failure.

Instead of taking, say, a 13-year-old neighbor to see Captain America, I took Your Sister. We loved it. Loved it. It's a fun adventure film with great one-liners. I wrote about it in the new Bossk Office. It made me want to see Thor immediately. Next year looks to be huge for comic movies. Our babysitter is the sister to my movie-buddy, and I let her know I could take him within a few weeks if he needed a ride.

I stopped in at the local comic store and talked to the store owner about our newspaper page. He's gotten some business out of it and sold some of my books.

I've started shopping for PS3 mics and figuring out how to activate the chat option. I think it's done through the PS Home feature. It seems to be a mild version of Second Life. You can find me as heygregory on the PS servers. Currently I play around 11 pm as Your Sister begins her mysterious nighttime rituals. I'm probably 2 hours away from finishing Infamous2. I'm playing as a hero, and I'll immediately restart it as a villain so I can target street performers.

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A photo from this weekend's Comicon.

Star Wars Blu-Ray Preview

We'll get the first three films for sure, probably not the prequels.

System Addendum

I popped into Gamestop during lunch and spotted this, a Wii controller designed like the XBox/PS3 versions:

I suppose this means you needn't disqualify Wii as an option. However, this contraption looks flimsy, and I can't vouch for the number of games it might work with. I'd still look to the other systems.

A used PS3 starts at $249; a used XBox runs $149. Depending on what comparable video services you get through your laptop, the PS3 price may be worth it.

Busted

"Oh, just traipse down to Blockbuster and rent a game system."

Or maybe you live in a town, as I do, that just lost its Blockbuster. I'm saddened. I relied on the Buster of Blocks weekly in my high-school days (for movies my parents would/will never approve), and it served me well through my 20s and even after I married into your family. We hadn't stepped foot in our local store in maybe two years as we took advantage of the satellite dish's recorder and on-demand movie service, but still, it was a comforting presence. If the internets collapsed, we could always rent a DVD. No longer.

Just last week, I bought my first DVD in a year. Barnes & Noble had a Criterion DVD sale, and I got a copy of Naked Lunch for $20. I talked it up back in January. I specifically got it for the director/actor commentary, and it may be months before I can crack it open. It'll play in the background as I work on the next comic.

And on my lunch break, I noticed the Tunnel Road Blockbuster is also closed.

Hey, if there's a GameStop in town, you might be able to buy a used system for a song. They can also hook you up with all the equipment you might need.

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Here's Entertainment Weekly's first look at the new Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy. They look the part, gotta say. Not sure we need another origin retelling for Spidey though.

Let's Talk Game Systems

If you're looking for a game system to build eye-hand coordination, X-Box or PlayStation are your options. The Nintendo Wii is a motion controller with some buttons. It's a wand. Both X-Box and PlayStation offer body-motion control systems, but they also have the multi-button controllers too.

There are 12 buttons and two control sticks on their current controllers. You can swivel the sticks with your thumbs, and they also depress as a control option. There are wireless versions that provide vibrating feedback which parallels game action. The controllers recharge via USB connections to the systems. Here, the systems are equal.

So let's say you buy the system I have, the PS3. In addition to the eye-hand development, the system will connect online to allow Internet browsing and Netflix streaming. The PS3 is designed to be an all-in-one, providing photo, audio, and video playback on your TV. You can jack your laptop to it and stream your files. It's swank.

But to take advantage of the eye/hand development, you'll need to pick the big games, the biggest franchises in a variety of genres: sports, first-person shootes, role-playing, etc.

I recommend three games right now: Red Dead Redemption (a cowboy game), Uncharted 2 (an Indiana Jones adventure type, and I recommend this one for the humor and variety) and InFamous2 (a superhero game). These games make you use as many as four buttons at one time, meaning your thumbs and index fingers will be in play in various combinations within seconds of each other. This builds up your skills the most.

Almost any game offers a control tutorial to get you started so you could walk into any game with no previous controller experience and be fine. You'll go from random button-mashing to specific finger combinations within minutes, and you won't even look at your hands within half an hour. We had fun with Katamari Damacy, and that game also offers multi-button control but not on the split-second control change like the three games I mentioned above. You can download free demos through the PS3 and rent games from local outlets including, probably, the closest grocery store.

So, you gots options. Let's start from here.

+  +  +

The boy is back at daycare, and his extended time away did him no favors. He was quiet and nervous as we walked in the door and a crying wreck before I left. It's not easy, but I think I honestly can weather this better than Your Sister. She's still new at leaving him, and she hasn't dropped him off at daycare. She's at work today for a full-day school meeting.

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My Buddy.
My Buddy.
My Buddy and me!

We Said No. No, We Said.

The boy has taken a decidedly obstinate turn, and we're playing the heavies. As a symptom of his daycare experience, he know think everything of interest can be grabbed and clutched. Getting a valuable item back from him is like yanking it from a lion's jaw, and he melts down when it's taken away. We try to distract him by pointing out the half-dozen geegaws he can play with, but the shrieking continues. This is pouting, and I'll only tolerate the silent version. Shrieking is verboten. Your Sister administered her first spanking last night when he stood up in the tub. I think I spanked him some months back to shock him out of a crying fit.

I missed the bath smack as I was watching Transformers 3, a film that exists for one technically astounding siege of Chicago that lasts one hour. Unfortunately, you have to sit through almost 90 minutes of inexcusable mugging and mindless plots to get there. The kid liked it, and I might have a movie date for Captain America. There's a cool revision of the Apollo moon missions involving talking robots, and I wondered what the Apollo astronauts might think of this. About an hour later, onto the screen walks Buzz Aldrin, the second moon walker. Good for him for getting a movie paycheck and a shout-out from Optimus Prime. That may have done more for NASA's cool factor than the last three shuttle launches.

Your Sis took the sidekick back to the doctor to confirm the hallelujah rash is just that. And he did. This means she can go back to daycare. Also, he isn't going to keel over at any moment, which is also good.

My eyes feel better, not so tender at the periphery. My stomach is a ruin after two consecutive nights of event food.

Picture of the Day
We're Facebook famous in a unidentified, regional, sport-specific manner. I mentioned derby to the movie buddy, and he said he was dying to go. I want to encourage his interest, but I don't want to expand our partnership much farther. I can be his friend, but I can't be his best friend.